Thursday, March 27, 2014

HEARTS AND MINDS by Marie Treanor

Down to earth psychologist Jenna Hunt arrives in obscure Zavrekestan to find her missing friend, Nell, last seen with notorious gangster Rodion Kosar. But nothing goes the way Jen intended. Complete strangers want to harm her. She shoots one man and travels with another who may or may not be the elusive Kosar, but who's constantly pursued by armed secret police. Dangerous attraction flares, adding excitement as well as unexpected fun to her search.

But Jen's dark, mysterious travelling companion is both gifted and cursed. A powerful healer with blood on his conscience and a terrible tragedy in his past, he's now suffering agonies whenever he exercises his gift, and in this he's not alone. As Jen is drawn deeper into his world of radical dissidents and the paranormally gifted, she discovers the terrors of a ruthless government which will stop at nothing to hold onto power. She finds herself risking all to help the very people she came to rescue Nell from, and neither common sense nor principles can keep her from the arms of the sexy, tormented Nikolai.

Nikolai’s world was blood. It ran in crimson rivers before his eyes. He could feel its thick, sticky wetness on his skin and clothes as he ran, roaring, into the prison guards beyond his cell door. His gory handcuffs hung from one wrist, and he swung them like a mace, tearing more flesh, creating more blood. He didn’t care how many there were. He wanted more to fight, more to kill.

“Bring him down, now!”

Although the order penetrated his ears and his understanding, it didn’t slow him up. One of the guards, too close to shoot him, tried to hit him with the butt of his gun instead. Nikolai snatched it from him, felled him with a much more brutal blow of his own, and kicked him into his fellows. He increased his speed. He didn’t really know why—he was in hell, and wherever he ran to would still be hell. All he could do was kill and fight and yell his way along passages of prison guards and police, forcing his way through with as much violence as he could wreak.

Gunfire exploded in his head as he wielded the cuffs and his feet, using his whole body as a battering ram when necessary. But then there was no one to fight now, only guns firing where he couldn’t reach them, so all he could do was run. His body jerked sometimes, as if he’d been shot, but he didn’t feel the bullets, didn’t care. They didn’t slow him up.

Blood ran into his eyes, dripped from his body. He only wanted more.

“Draw him toward the door!” yelled the commander, his voice penetrating the chaos, as daylight began to pierce the dark, red mists through which Nikolai ran. “Units both sides! We’ve got him!”

Have you fuck.

It was his first conscious thought for a long time. They’d actually opened the heavy prison door to be sure he went in that direction. They thought it was a trap. He charged right through, jerking, swinging his cuffs and his fists, kicking, spinning, beating, breaking his way through bodies to fresh air.

Although the noise deafened him, none of it—not his own roars or the gunshots or yells of agony filling his ears from every direction—could drown out the screaming in his head. Even then, in the midst of the blood-madness, he knew it was the kind of screaming that went on forever.

*

She breathed a sigh of relief, dumped the food on the side table, and took off her leather jacket, throwing it on the bed. She turned to wish him a cordial good-night and discovered he was inside, closing the door and locking it.

Never, ever make assumptions.

“Shit, I thought we’d have one each,” she blurted.

He glanced at her. “Sorry. I didn’t have enough money.”

She had enough money. But that wasn’t the point. For the first time since she’d met him, he sounded almost…humble. About money, for God’s sake.

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered. It spilled out more ungraciously than she intended, but God, she’d really been looking forward to that shower and bed and properly relaxing for the first time since she’d parted from her guide at the border and turned the hired car toward that dreadful pub…

“You’re quite safe,” he drawled. “I believe I can control myself to the extent of not raping you.”

Memory flooded back. Her knees gave way, and she sank onto the bed, and suddenly he was there beside her, his arm around her shoulders.

“He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t.” She pinched the skin of her throat where her would-be rapist’s hand had gripped her.

“There are many kinds of hurt,” he said, taking her pinching fingers in his. “And Yegor’s a total fucker who should have been shot years ago.”

A sob that was half laughter rose up her throat and came out as a watery smile. She found herself holding hard on to his fingers. “How do you manage to make me feel better by saying stuff like that?”

It was true. The sudden panic attack, the remembered fear and horror had faded again into manageable memory.

“Magic,” he said, and without thought, she lifted the fingers she held to her cheek, a gesture of warmth and gratitude. Only she glanced at his face as she did so, and felt the shock of attraction hit her in the stomach like a blow. His face was much too close, his dark, velvet eyes intent on hers. For an instant, they looked bewildered, almost desperate, mirroring her own vulnerability. His other arm was warm and suddenly heavy around her shoulders. She could feel the hardness she’d always known lurked beneath his shabby hoodie, and instead of frightening her, she wanted more, to be closer.

She was afraid to breathe. The only sound seemed to be the beating of her heart. His gaze dipped to the region of her mouth, and everything inside her seemed to turn over. It would take so very little just to close the distance between, touch his lips with hers, taste him…

What would it be like to kiss him, this stranger? In every sense of the word.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “I’m only human.”

God, yes, let me tempt you. Lose your strong, superior self in me…

His arm tightened. The fingers she still held moved, brushing her cheek, making her gasp. His breath kissed her lips, and he hauled her against his chest, hard and arousing. But his lips pressed only to her forehead, and then he released her.